


I Think I Can Fly

by vaguesalvation



Category: Girugamesh, Jrock
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Dark, Depression, Mental Health Issues, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-16
Updated: 2011-10-16
Packaged: 2017-10-24 16:49:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/265717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaguesalvation/pseuds/vaguesalvation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Satoshi just wants to sing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Think I Can Fly

Satoshi’s eyes reflect broken dreams and beaten down ideas, subtle inadequacies he thinks no one notices. Like a shattered mirror, he breaks into millions of tiny pieces and falls to the floor one shard of glass at a time. The process is sometimes agonizingly slow, the flaked-off bits of him so small he can’t even tell they had been a part of him at all. There is no reason for him to know, he tells himself on the nights he finds too much missing, because after a while those bits start to accumulate, and there’s nothing he can do beside stare at the gaping holes in disbelief.

In so many ways, he is still a child, all wide-eyed innocence and easy optimism. He hates this part of himself the most, the part that doesn’t want to accept the world’s cruelty, the part that just won’t seem to die. He thought he’d lost this part of himself a long time ago, when his father had strained to look at him through an alcohol induced haze and told him not to fall in love with his dreams.

It’s easy to fall, his father had warned with a shaky, pointed finger. Dreams are beautiful, wicked things with wings that have already been clipped. They will do nothing but fall, after they finally gather the courage to step off the ledge and try to fly. And they will bring him down with them.

Satoshi’s eyes reflect those fallen, broken dreams. But he knows he will always jump off the edge with them. And he’ll shatter; break into so many tiny pieces of himself that leave holes behind. Every single time.

\--

I just want to sing, he says, and she hates him for it. She hates that he wants something she can’t give to him. She hates the dreams and the courage and the flying, flying, flying, falling.

She hates that she can’t catch him, before or after he takes the plunge.

And so she leaves. She thinks it’s better to go quietly, no explanation, no way for him to find her.

When he realizes she’s gone, it’s too late.

Another piece breaks off, left alone on the floor, her name written all over it in faded ink.

\--

He makes his way to the top with a band of boys he’s fallen in love with. But the top is a scary place with too little footholds and too many people just waiting to push him off. He holds onto Shuu’s hand as he jumps from narrow, fragile step to narrow, fragile step, all the time aware of the dangers lurking behind the masks of businessmen just waiting to take advantage of him. Their offers are tempting, little devils wrapped in good intentions. And he wants to touch them, god, he wants to touch.

He startles when Ryo wraps an arm around his waist, pressing against his back and whispering hot, desperate words in his ear. Ryo is sexuality and promise, and Ryo will hold him back from the urge to see, hear, taste, smell, touch more, if only through urging him to do all those things elsewhere.

I just want to sing, he tells them, and Nii smiles, because Nii understands. Nii isn’t afraid and doesn’t hate him for his dreams and his courage.

He feels safe in the circle of Ryo’s arms, fingers clasped in Shuu’s, smiling back at Nii like the world is theirs for the taking.

The feeling only lasts a moment.

\--

The photographs hold him inside their thin borders, traces of the pieces that just keep falling away from him, tangible enough for him to see clearly. He sees, and sees, and sees.

So many things to see.

But he never remembers himself, what he was like before the photographs were taken. He molds to their wills, the faceless people in the crowd, reaching for him, screaming for more.

He thinks if he gives anymore, there will be nothing left.

\--

He has a broken mirror in his bedroom, the one Shuu pushed a fist through in effort to pull him back from a nightmare. That’s what his dreams have become. Where once their wings were beautiful, the white of angels, they’ve turned black and their feathers graze his skin like razor blades. He doesn’t remember the scars until someone points them out.

He’s not so great at hiding the holes anymore.

\--

He rips every photograph into tiny little squares and hopes they might know how to put themselves back together.

\--

I just want to sing, he says, this time to no one but the shadows in his room. He remembers talking to the shadows when he was young and afraid. When his father would drink and tell him stories of the evils of dreams.

He thinks he might understand now, but that doesn’t stop him from getting up every morning, pretending like his legs aren’t too thin to walk on, like his body isn’t just the jagged edges of a puzzle that will never be whole again. He thinks he understands now, but he still wants to believe he can make it through another day.

Shuu still holds his hand. Tight, tight, tighter, until he feels like his fingers will be the next part of him to break off. Ryo holds him at night, kissing away the tears and licking his wounds clean.

Nii’s smiles never cease to grip him at just the right moments.

He wonders if he holds back just as firm.

\--

He meets her again at a coffee shop in Yokohama, after a show that left his throat sore and bleeding. She asks if he’s learned to fly, and he tells her yes because he doesn’t want her to feel responsible for not catching him.

She smiles at him, says she happy he’s found his dreams, but he can tell she still hates.

He knows it’s that hatred that keeps the ripped up photographs on the floor of his apartment from putting themselves back together.

He can’t bring himself to blame her for it.

\--

It’s the alcohol that sends him over the edge. The smell, taste, touch of it on his tongue. He gets so drunk he can’t walk without holding onto the wall, and every time he takes a step he leaves pieces on the floor in his wake.

In so many ways, he’s still a child, his dreams broken and bleeding and ripping him apart at the seams. He thinks of his father’s words, of Shuu’s hand and Ryo’s arms, of Nii’s smiles and her hate.

He stares at himself in the broken mirror for nearly two hours that night.

He has never looked so whole before.


End file.
